The present invention applies to a variety of stringed instruments, however, for purposes of description, a typical acoustic guitar is used as an example.
A typical acoustic guitar has a hollow body or sound box connected to a neck. The hollow body has a soundboard with a sound hole, a back or bottom board spaced from the soundboard, and a shaped side wall which connects between the soundboard and backboard.
The acoustic guitar has a series of strings strung at substantial tension from a bridge on the soundboard, across the sound hole, and along the neck. The string tension creates forces which act on the neck, the connection between the neck and the body and the soundboard and which, over time, can cause bending, cracking or other damage. The damage can result in structural failure and altered intonation of the acoustic guitar.
Traditionally, necks of stringed instruments have been directly connected to the body of the guitar. The guitar typically has a flat surfaced neck block just on the inside of the side wall of the body to provide extra structure support to support the neck. The neck block is positioned just opposite of the end of the neck which is to be connected to the body of the guitar. The side wall of the body of the guitar is sandwiched therebetween.
Due to typical handling and the tension applied by the strings, stresses on the connection between the neck and the body can eventually compromise the integrity of the guitar. This results not only in basic structural damage, but also deterioration of the tonal quality of the guitar. The connection between the neck and the body should therefore be strong and stable.
All U.S. patents and applications all other published documents mentioned anywhere in this application are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Without limiting the scope of the invention in any way, the invention is briefly summarized in some of its aspects below.